The technology blog of Neil Thompson

I am a big fan of Google’s Autheticator app which adds 2-factor authentication to a number of popular apps including Dropbox, WordPress, LastPass and, of course, Google accounts.

Since my mother-in-law’s GMail account was compromised and she wasn’t able to recover it I have considered the use of 2-factor authentication as mandatory rather than a nicety.

What this means in practice is that in order to access your account you need something that you know (the password) and something that you have (your phone). This should considerably increase your online security as if anyone does get your password they still won’t be able to access your account unless they also have your phone.

This all works well and I recommend to anyone that will listen that they must adopt this approach. The complaint it that is more difficult to access your accounts and that’s exactly the point.

While all this works well there is an odd bug in the iPhone app. If you want to edit the labels associated with the accounts Google has helpfully provided an Edit button – except that it doesn’t work, no amount of tapping will coax it into allowing you to edit your accounts.